Monday, March 10, 2008

2001 is 40...

Saw a 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood last night. It holds up beautifully at 40, even if it retains that cool Kubrickian air of smug knowingness. For a film about evolution and the next chapter of human consciousness, it feels very tight-lipped and sleight-of-hand-y. Still, what an accomplishment.

I am sure (by hunch, not proof) that Paul Thomas Anderson is a huge Kubrick fan and devoted student of 2001 (as is his composer, Johnny Greenwood). I would go so far as to say that the monkey's bone weapon in the Dawn of Man sequence is also the bowling pin that Daniel Plainview uses to club Paul Sunday in the final sequence of There Will be Blood (before it becomes a spaceship of course). America, in the eyes of Anderson's film, is a force of devolution: A country fueled by burning black liquid that could very well be the stuff of melted black monoliths, eh?